


Catching Caffrey

by Davechicken



Category: White Collar
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Multi, OT3, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's been chasing Neal for a very long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Caffrey

I can still smell Elizabeth on the pillows. I can taste her on my lips where she kissed me goodbye. A function dragged her away early this morning, but it is a Saturday, and I am a free man. Free to enjoy my weekend, without any real fear that the Bureau will call me up and demand my immediate – grumpy – presence. No big cases to sneak into my subconscious mind and make me scribble in the margins of my newspaper, no agent out in the field leaving me checking my cellphone every five minutes.

Free.

Free to worry about the only other complication in my life: Neal. And boy, is he enough of a complication on his own. I often wonder how I managed those three years, eight months with him behind bars. No chasing him across the globe, and no wondering how he was currently testing the limits of his parole and my patience. I must have managed, but the memory is distant and although I know I had good times, I don’t recall most of that period with the same vivid clarity that I do times with him. The only real exception being my wife, of course. Every memory of her is perfect, but she is not there when I am at work, and this is when Neal fills the gaps of my recall.

Currently, Neal is in my bathroom. He is singing something I can’t quite catch in the shower. He only got up to relieve himself, but the man is an insatiable clean-freak and any chance he can get, he’s preening. He usually smells just as good as my wife, if somewhat less flowery. Somewhat.

I think about calling out to him, asking him to stop the singing and climb back into bed and keep me company, but he’ll be here in a minute anyway and we’ve got all day. So I indulge my mind and let it wander, as my fingers stroke over the linens and marvel at the fact they now stretch to hold three. 

I am, I know, the luckiest man in the world. I have a wife who loves me, and I have... whatever Neal is. Whatever he is. It’s as difficult to understand and define as the man himself is. Wild – oh god yes. Wicked. Wonderful. Wilful. Neal. 

I don’t know how long we’ll have this. By rights we shouldn’t – for more reasons than it’s too good to be true, sharing your lover with your wife. It’s also against everything I should stand for as a Good, Decent, Law-Enforcing Citizen of this country, and Agent of Federal Law. But around Neal even Law/Crime blurs into Good/Bad, and you find yourself doing a lot of things that on paper you shouldn’t. And not regretting them, either.

But I don’t know how long we’ll have this for lots of reasons. One of them is that damned anklet: without it, Neal wouldn’t be singing in the shower, he’d... well I don’t want to think about what he’d be doing in the shower. It chills my blood to consider it now. But it’s a sentence, with a period at the end. It’s time-bound, and so could this be. We’ve deliberately not spoken about it much. If Neal’s ever broached it, I’ve stubbornly changed the subject or avoided the topic until he’s stopped mentioning it. If you say it, then... it becomes real. If you admit you’re sleeping with your C.I., if you admit you’re breaking rules and laws... then somehow it’s worse than if you’re just turning a blind eye to it. It’s stupid, but it’s the plausible deniability of work. It’s one of those little mental tricks I play to keep myself sane. And now it’s too late to talk about it, and even Elizabeth knows not to ask. Maybe she talks to Neal. Probably. 

So I don’t know. I don’t ask, and no one tells. Which is pathetic, childish, and Peter Burke for you.

I guess the other reasons don’t really matter. If I’m not even brave enough to ask – to talk – then frankly, I don’t really deserve to know. 

Neal stops singing. I can’t hear anything now, and I stare at the doorway, hoping for breaks in the light creeping out underneath, the subtle evidence of his presence in my home. He’s towelling himself dry, I tell myself. He’s not running. But that horrible tightness grips my chest suddenly and it’s like he’s prised open a window and is running stark-naked down the street away from my home. I grab a handful of the sheets and bite my lip, hard. Breathe in Elizabeth’s smell... and Neal’s. It chokes me and when Neal opens the door, one towel wrapped loosely around his waist, another rubbing through his unruly, shower-drenched hair, I must look like I’ve seen a ghost.

“Peter,” he says, his voice full of compassion and caring. He drops the towel from his hand, sits at once on the edge of the bed and slides his hand over mine, trying to ease the death-grip I’ve got going on. “Is my singing really that bad?”

I should laugh, nod, and tell him it is. Tell him to put his mouth to better use, drag him in for kisses and pretend none of this ever happened.

I should. I can’t. I smile what I know is a horrible evil-clown smile. One that would make children scream and run for their mothers. Neal just keeps his hand on mine, his thumb rubbing slow circles over my own. I force my hand to relax even though the rest of me can’t – yet. 

“For a minute I thought you’d run,” I tell him, and I try to make it sound like the ridiculous idea it is. It even sounds pathetic. I pull my hand from under his, put it under the pillow. Safe.

Neal tilts his head at me, curious like a cat. He keeps his hand where it was, and then lifts his foot up onto the bed, flashing his anklet at me. “I wouldn’t get far.” He is utterly un-self-conscious about the fact that he’s now exposing himself from under the very small towel. Under normal circumstances I would jump him for that.

“You could if you wanted to.”

I am stubborn. And stupid.

“And you’d catch me,” he counters, an answer for me as always.

“Would I?”

This makes him pause. He puts his foot down on the floor. Sits with his back to me, looking over his shoulder, twisted.

“You’ve caught me twice, Peter. And no one else has caught me even once. You do love to remind me and everyone else of that. Or are you now admitting it was Diane who did it?”

My scowl makes him laugh, but I still have to say, “Of course it was me.”

“Then why are you worried?” he asks, and now he starts to lie down on the bed, slinking sinuously down, arms above his head, letting just a shred of fluffy fabric cover what remains of his modesty. He looks gorgeous, and I’m still too tied up in knots to take advantage. “I’m right here.”

“Yeah. I know.” I smile at him and try to look less like the Joker this time, and more like... I don’t know. Who am I?

I’m still not taking his obvious bait, and I can see he’s frustrated. He wants me to want him, and right now I... do and I don’t. He won’t admit it, but this stings his pride. And maybe I get a bit of cruel pleasure from that. Maybe I’m just being ridiculously lapsed-Catholic about all this and denying myself too.

He gives in trying to look sultry, and properly turns to face me. It’s Serious Neal face now. Serious, I’m Being Good face, not the fake-good faces (he has many) of trying to get something. It’s a rare occasion and I feel like a dick.

“I’m here,” he says, again, and it’s quieter now, like it’s some kind of a secret.

“For the minute.”

“If you keep acting like this, yes, maybe.” Minor frustration, but he’s pushing me back. Like I’m pushing him. We’re both stubborn asses like that. It’s one of the reasons we work together, and one of the reasons we sometimes don’t. “Tell me, or I’m going to handcuff you to the bed and pretend I’m Jack Bauer.”

“You’re not Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer doesn’t get confessions out of people by kissing them.”

“He should try, sometime. It’s usually very effective.”

The absurdity of this makes me bark a laugh. “I think if he tried to kiss me, I would tell him everything, but only because I’d be terrified of what would happen if I didn’t.”

Neal smiles back at me, but it’s now a thin veneer. He’s putting up a wall again, and slipping further away. He’s acting again. Maybe other people wouldn’t be able to tell, but increasingly I can. He’s running away. And I’m pushing him.

“I caught you because I knew where you were going.” I blurt out the confession, and... I am not even sure how he’s done it, but he has. Maybe there is method in his madness.

At the edges of his smile, I can see the ice melting. Just a little. He sighs dramatically. “Yes. You did.”

“It was to Kate.”

Maybe if I talk though this simply, it will start making sense.

“Yes. I was there both times. I do remember it.” Dry.

How has he not worked out what I am trying to say? Or has he, and he’s doing this on purpose?

“There’s no more Kate to run to, Neal. How would I find you now?”

Neal’s mask goes fully in place now, and I’m frustrated. I’ve let down my guard, and he puts up his. I see it happening right before my eyes, and I grab for his wrist. I don’t know what else to do, and he jumps when I do it. Like he’s shocked, or stung. I don’t let go but it’s fucking painful holding on, painful in the chest-achey kind of way, and he’s tense in my hand. His eyes search mine and I know... I know. I could lose him right now. I could scare him, and he’d either get up and go, or he’d kiss me and we’d fuck, and he’d never actually be here, in bed, _real_ , ever again.

God this hurts. This hurts worse than any of those conversations I’ve refused to have with him. Hurts worse than when Elizabeth forced me to admit I wanted this to happen. Hurts worse than... anything I remember. Even courting Elizabeth was easier. She drew giant signs for me. Neal is all hidden messages and telling words and phrases. Meaning within meaning. 

I’m so lucky El is a straight-talker. So why did I fall for her emotional opposite?

“You didn’t find me because of Kate,” Neal says, after what feels like a year of waiting. Three years, eight months.

“Then what.” My voice doesn’t lift in question. It’s flat, but it’s a demand. I need to know. I need him to tell me. 

I need him.

“You found me because you knew what I wanted.” And there – there in his eyes, is the silent request for me to work this out. For me to be smart again. To catch him.

Why am I being so dumb?

“I’m... not sure I know any more.”

Elizabeth would castrate me for saying that. I know. Even though I’m useless at flirting, and even though I’m just so damn lucky my wife and I just... know... know how to talk, know that we... fit... even me, the king of emotional backwardness, knows that this is a really insensitive thing to say to someone who shares your bed. And wife.

His wrist flinches. Just a little. I hold it tighter. It must be hurting by now, and his eyes are blue and begging. Begging me to see. Begging me to find, without being told. Begging me to know.

We’re both so close to something dangerous and honest here, and it’s terrifying.

“I’ve run since Kate.”

“Yes. A lot. You do seem to enjoy doing it.”

“You know precisely how many times, Peter. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

I’m barely breathing. I nod. I do know. Each time has hurt so badly. Hurt like... betrayal. Neal asked me for this – asked to come out, into my custody. It’s always been personal, and it’s hurt every time he’s run. Every time I... thought he had run.

“Where did I go, Peter?”

And that hits me like a boot in the chest. It feels like all the wind is kicked out of me, and I know. I know. I reach out with my other hand, I don’t know what to do with it, but Neal does. He grabs my wrist in return. Locks slender, clever fingers around it – like a cuff. Like I am with him. Bound.

He came here. He came to my home. He fled custody, called my wife, and hid under my roof... and I harboured him. He cut his tag at gunpoint – worried for his life and stinging from a fight with me – and he came home. And he waited for me. Waited for me to find him.

He knows I know, and he doesn’t nod. We just stare at one another.

“Who else would look after you,” I say, dully. Maybe it was because he was smart. Maybe he was just playing the system.

“Precisely,” Neal tells me. “I ran to Kate, I ended up in prison. I ran from prison, and she ran away from me. I came here... and you saved me from myself.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. How could I be so stupid? How could I not trust him? He’s Neal... he’s never going to be lawful, he’s never going to stick to the rulebook. But he’s always going to run here. Even after I’ve insulted him – again.

“I know what you want,” I tell him. My voice is so quiet, it’s barely there. Whispered truths: say them quietly enough, so no one can hear, and no one can use them against you. Except for him.

“I should hope so,” Neal replies.

He’s never going to be law-abiding, but he’s always going to be Neal Caffrey. Loyal, loving, and a good man.

Even if I’m a little slow, and don’t realise I’ve already caught him. I don’t need to chase him any more.

“Now are you going to kiss me, Peter, or do I have to run around the house stealing things until you tie me up and punish me?”

“You’d enjoy that too much,” I accuse him. He doesn’t deny it, so I roll him onto his back, straddle his hips, and lean down to kiss him. To give him that attention he’s been begging me for all morning... and to reassure him that, at last, I trust him.

I have him right where I want him. And he’s going nowhere.


End file.
